Skills, Strategies & Resources in 2010

Part of the reason for this blog is to introduce clinicians to some of the research and application of coping strategies for people with chronic pain. While I can summarise the year’s developments in (almost) a single sentence (see below!), it’s also true that I’ve posted a lot of really interesting findings about coping over the year. Today’s summary links to the goodies I’ve found in 2010.

Oh, my summary? There is nothing especially new under the sun in self managing pain – it’s about goals, acceptance, exercise, engaging in important activities and roles, gratitude, connecting with people…oh and mirrorbox for some lucky people for whom it works well!

Cognitive behavioural approaches to pain management

Before I post the links, a quick word to describe a CBT approach in pain management.

Many clinicians who are not psychologists, or who have primarily ‘physical’-oriented practice and training think CBT as something for health psychologists or clinical psychologists to do. This is most emphatically not the case!

For a CBT approach to be most effective, the entire team working with a person need to adopt a CBT model as the guiding model, with individual techniques fitting into it. For people with pain, there is nothing more confusing than being given different explanations and approaches!

A CBT approach acknowledges the following:

That people interpret what is happening internally and externally

That these interpretations influence emotions and behaviours – and that relationships are reciprocal

That people can alter their thoughts and beliefs, and in so doing, take charge of the ways in which they respond to situations

A CBT approach assumes that:

People can learn to accept the chronicity of their pain

People can change their relationship to their pain so that instead of having an identity based on pain, symptoms, being a patient, they can become a ‘well person with pain’, or a ‘person living well with pain’

People can learn or re-explore skills to deal more effectively with pain

The goals of CBT are:

Reduce pain intensity (where this can happen)

Increase functional activity, including work

Reduce/rationalise the use of medication and healthcare resources

Reduce distress

Improve quality of life

Why use this approach?

Promotes reconceptualising pain as a biopsychosocial phenomenon

Provides for many areas of intervention

Effective

Can be conducted alongside other therapies (although combining a focus on pain reduction with pain acceptance is difficult)

Improves collaboration and engagement with the person who has pain

Promotes a common language

What comprises a CBT approach?

A good explanation or mental model of pain (one that includes biopsychosocial elements)